The events surrounding the terrorist attack in Orlando make it obvious that we need to review gun-purchase laws.

I'm sure many of my readers will be surprised with the direction I am taking on this issue, but it's a simple case of common sense.  The murderer who killed 49 people last Saturday/Sunday night, purchased two of the murder weapons a couple days before he committed his act of terrorism.  There was no need for a legitimate background check because most states do not insist upon that requirement.  If an FBI background check had been in place, he never would have been allowed to purchase those weapons.  The National Rifle Association (NRA) and Gun Rights Organizations are going to argue that he would have been able to access the same weapons illegally on the Black Market.  I would much rather that the asshole had been forced to dig up contacts in Orlando's seedy gun-selling underground, than to know he was able to purchase the weapons legally just hours after entering the gun store.  Maybe it wouldn't have made a difference, but then he might have gotten caught up in a law enforcement sting operation, or he may have bought a misfiring weapon.  As for those who argue that if he was truly determined to kill people, he would have just used a different weapon.  I would be a heck of a lot more comfortable if he had entered the club with a butterknife, wouldn't you?

No, I have not changed by opinion vis-à-vis the Second Amendment.  I will defend with my life the right of United States citizens to legally own a firearm.  But the establishment of a two-day waiting period, to include fulsome background checks, will only help us keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of the sleeper cells we on the right love to talk about so much.  The NRA argues that additional background checks are a slippery slope, that will eventually lead to more onerous prohibitions.  Isn't that what the NRA is for?  I assume the dues of the hundreds of thousands of NRA members will provide more than enough resources to prevent a full legal assault on the Second Amendment.  What I am calling for is reasonable and timely.  We can't continue to call for the left to compromise if we aren't willing to do so ourselves.  From my perspective, only persons with troubling backgrounds should be opposed to a two-day waiting period.

Now to really piss off my conservative buddies.  Assault and automatic weapons are not covered by the Second Amendment.  When the Amendment was written and voted into law, assault and automatic weapons DID NOT EXIST.  So how can they be covered under the Second Amendment?  I do not hunt, but the people I know who do, use either a single-shot rifle or a bow-and-arrow.  Just how dead does the Buck have to be, that it requires an AR-15 to take down?  Assault weapons and automatic guns exist for one reason, and that is for killing groups of people.  I will make a deal with those who disapgree with me.  If it appears that our government is moving towards a dictatorship, I will gladly fight to remove the prohibition on assault and automatic weapons. 

I do support the Second Amendment and I am enough of a student of our Constitution to believe that it was added to allow private citizens the opportunity to own a weapon as part of a state militia, in the event that our government did become oppressive.  I make every effort to follow the Constitution to the letter, and when an issue is nebulous, then I study the background with the hope of determining the intent of our Founding Fathers.  We do have threats to our freedoms, but for the most part they come from abroad.  Law Enforcement and the U.S. Armed Forces are more than capable of protecting us.  And if the time comes that the Army needs to be supplanted by militias, then the legally-purchased handguns and rifles will have to suffice until other arrangments are made.